Communication

Communicate Clearly and Confidently

Want To See Me Doing Stand-Up Comedy Live On Stage?

One of the things I highly recommend for facing your fears in The Confident Man Program is getting up at an open-mic night and performing in front of a live audience. You’ll feel the excitement beforehand and the adrenaline rush when you’re up there, and the elation afterwards knowing that you’ve conquered most people’s biggest fear. From then on, it becomes really fun.

Given that I like to walk my talk, here’s the video of my recent graduation gig from a stand-up comedy course that I did recently. My biggest fear was losing the plot on-stage and forgetting my material. Everything was going great until about 5 minutes in… when I lost it completely! The results was hilarious. I know you’ll enjoy it:

… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Ask Your Boss For A Raise

Hey there, it’s Graham from The Confident Man Project with an idea for you and here’s something I never had the guts to do back before I worked for myself, but that’s okay. I can still suggest it. You might want to do it. And that is to be able to go and ask your boss for a raise.

This is particularly important if you feel that you’re not being paid your worth and you’re a hard-worker. You do a really great job and you just feel as though maybe you deserve a little bit more in your paycheck and you want to push your comfort zone, step outside and do something that’s a little bit challenging; then it’s a great idea to go and ask your boss for a raise.

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

Notice When You’re Being Defensive

Hey there, it’s Graham again from The Confident Man Project, and I’m down in the beautiful bush today with yet another confidence building tip for you. And today I want to talk about dropping defensiveness. Now, this came up to me a few years ago when I was reading a fantastic book by Malcolm Gladwell called Blink, which is all about the power of developing intuition. One of the things that Gladwell talks about in his book is the golden rule of theatrical improvisation which is the technique that comedy actors use on stage to improvise new material. And the golden rule is this: always accept what other people say about you as being the truth.

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

Practice Using “I” Statements

Hey, it’s Graham here from The Confident Man Project again and today you’re going to learn about becoming assertive by using “I” statements in conversations. I find that a lot of times when talking to people or listening to people who lack confidence, what we often tend to do is we use the word “you” where really we mean “I”. Often the reason behind this is simply bad practice, we’ve got into a bad habit of doing it, and also we’re wanting to try to connect with the other people who we’re talking to so we end up saying “you” to talk about general experiences in the hope that they’ll get where we’re coming from instead of saying “I” where we’re talking about our specific experience.

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

Read How To Talk To Anyone by Leil Lowndes

Hey, it’s Graham here from The Confident Man Project with some tips for you on how to feel more confident when you’re having conversations with other people. And the biggest tip that I have in fact is to read a book on the subject which is this one called How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tips for Big Success in Relationships by Leil Lowndes.

Obviously our sense of self-confidence is most pronounced or lack of self-confidence is most pronounced when we’re trying to have conversations with other people and we’re feeling like, “I don’t know how to do this,”, “I don’t know what to say and how to relate to these people,” or, “I’m feeling shy or awkward or socially anxious.”

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

Make Eye Contact With Strangers

Hey there, it’s Graham with another confidence building activity for you this week. And this activity is all about making eye contact with strangers. As you’re going about your daily routine, as you’re walking particularly through crowds of people and you see other strangers, the basic thing that you need to do here is to simply make eye contact with them and hold that eye contact for as long as possible.

Now, there’s an interesting little social phenomena here when two people make eye contact, particularly two strangers. One of them will always avert their gaze first. And what happens is that the person with the highest level of social status and self-confidence, which tend to go together, is the person that maintains the gaze the longest. This is very interesting and you’ll start to notice this. Whenever you make eye contact with someone, the person that averts their gaze first is the one with the lower level of self-confidence.

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

Practice Speaking More Slowly And Deeply

Hey, it’s Graham here from The Confident Man Project with yet another confidence building tip for you. And today I want to talk about the way that we speak. The way that we speak says a whole lot about our level of general self-confidence and how nervous we are in any particular situation.

So what you want to do is to practice speaking more slowly and more deeply, particularly if you’ve got a bit of a high-pitched voice or if you find yourself always speaking very quickly; you’re always in a rush to get things out and you’ve got to say what you’ve got to say.

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

Nonviolent Communication: Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg

Hey, it’s Graham here again and if you were to ask me the question, “What’s one book that you could read that would help you to improve your communication skills, get on better with women and men, help you deal with conflict better, make you a better person, just make your life flow more easily and generally improve the quality of life here on the planet?”, one book every human should read is this one.

It’s called Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg. Let me try to hold it straight. And I highly, highly, highly recommend this book. In fact, I would say if you are only able to read one book on personal development or self-help or whatever, how to live a better life, anything, how to self-actualize, this would be the book to read.

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Start Conversations with Strangers

Hey, it’s Graham here, and I want to talk about starting conversations with strangers. And there’s a little trick here that I’ve worked out that I want to share with you which I think is kind of important. So the reason why starting conversations with strangers is important is that it’s in conversations and our social skills that our confidence is most important and is most obvious to other people.

Now, there’s no magic silver bullet to starting conversations with strangers. The reason for that is that it doesn’t really matter what you say to people when you first meet them. Everything that’s really important is in the attitude that you have. If you’re nervous and insecure or edgy when you meet somebody, particularly a woman, they’re going to sense that and they’re going to feel like, “I’m bit uncomfortable about talking to this person.” You’re not going to come across as very confident.

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Treat Each Other With Respect

If you have someone in your life who treat you in ways that leave you feeling unsafe, propose introducing these Ground Rules For Emotionally Safe Communication in that relationship.

respectAgreeing to these ground rules in all our communication helps us both to feel safe and have our feelings respected. They are particularly important during challenging conversations when we are triggered with anger, sadness, fear, guilt and/or shame. We commit to applying them even when we are most upset.

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago